New Layout for IF - Feedback required - Page 11

awww vijay bhaiya i cna only say one thng

awesomeee.!!!!!!

i mena its just 222 cooollllll .....

luv ash

First and foremost i wish to congratulate Vijay and the entire team who is working day and night to make India-forums one of the best Indian sites, not only in India but in the world.

Had it been a layout of some other website, i would have liked it, because it wouldnt have any competition in my mind. However, in this case, the new layout is competing with the old layout which has a uniqueness and homeliness to it which is sooo difficult to match.

I must say, the new layout is very professional and edgy, however, i kind of miss that coziness in it which i always feel when i come to this current IF layout.

I wish i could say, please dont change the entire look of the site, but make some changes which can incorporate the latest requirements and also maiantain the individuality of India-forums. But if the layout must change, then here are a few humble thoughts:

1. The top advertisement banner can be shifted a little towards right and the main IF logo can appear along with it on left. as we have in the current Layout. i feel it is very important to have the Main IF logo right at the top to tell the visitor who we are and where he is.

2. The new logo, though seems too inspired by UN looks very good. May be a world map in the backdrop can do the trick.

3. I kind of feel the main India-Forums in the logo too dull. the current one is very bright and stands out. wish we can have some bright colors for it.

4. the quick launch bar is brilliant. i wish we can have a sub-bar which covers Active Topics | Members List | | Indian TV Index | TV Actors Index | | Star Interviews | IF-Addicts

5. The UN and PW can shift in parallel on the time bar, to save space.

6. upload your video can go down to the random video box, in a bright color next to more videos. that way it will stay close to its relevant group.

7. I like the flashing banner in the current layout which shows different important topics. i wish we could keep that on the main page, in the spae we have emptied from login and upload video.

8. Bolloywood news and telly buzz looks very good. With equal importance given to both, the site will attract all kind of traffic. But instead of two, i wish four hot news topics are shown in the main box.

9. And i wish like the current layout, all TV channels and their respective serials are shown on the main page. The main IF traffic is because of TV serials and discussion. though the purpose of the current changes is to attract others as well and make IF more appealing to all, i still think the dedicated 4000 to 5000 users currently are die hard Telly fans. So it would be great for them if all the shows are shown on the main page like it is done now. however, the design and layout, colors, styles, etc can change appropriately.

10. At the bottom of the page, there is the new IF-logo, but this time its all white. since it is on blue BG i believe thats why white stands out, but i think that contradicts with a logo policy and strategy. At all times, i believe, the logo must maintain its colors and its layout, irrespective of the bg color. That is how we can maintain the integrity of our logo and follow the true copy right rules.

I believe i have mentioned all the points i could think of. please accept my advance apology if i have written anything to hurt anyones feelings. the purpose is to appreciate the hardwork of the creative team and give them suggestions which can make it even more better for all of us.

Once again, Vijay and the team, please accept our heartfelt gratitude for a job sooo well-done.

Best wishes,

A dedicated IF-fan,

Kashish.

Just went through the new IF layout.Here are few thoughts to make things more confusing 😆

The first page in the layout seems to be one third of the current page. Looks like the attempt is to organize things and make it more user friendly.It looks more organized but not sure How it will match with current page in user friendliness which is 3 times bigger.

The new layout looks more contemporary and that "desi feel" seems to be missing.I am not sure How much it is important to have that feeling.

The weightage given to different sections seems to have changed in the layout. It may be due to the direction Dev team wants to move or it is just due to fact that the proposed page is only one third of the current page.

Not sure How long (in length)you can keep the first page.Are there any specific requirements?Is the current page unique because it is the longest? What will be better between modifying the current page and making it short vs bringing this new layout?

Well, bottomline is that an attempt is being made to improve upon the current page.And Dev team always strives to improve the site.

May the feedback from every body bring a better layout.Good luck!

Hi Friends,

It was really nice going through all the suggestions and feedback. I do not know how many times I say, its really nice to see a "sense of belongingness" towards India-Forums and the way members come forward to help us with their ideas, suggestions and feedback. And probably that is what makes us different to other sites.

Coming back to a few more stuffs:

a) As mentioned earlier I understand that many might feel that this will make the site look more techno and less of a "welcoming","homely" but do not worry we are taking all possible user tests to make sure that India-Forums is always welcoming and a warm place and somewhere "homely" too.

b) The design update is essential as the current layout is somewhere limiting us in terms of things that we can really do at India Forums to make it even better and take it to the next level. Somewhere the idea is to give members a platform to discuss on issues apart from Television to even more broader areas like Bollywood, Indian Entertainment. Then evolving it into a unique Social Networking model, Video sharing, FREE Classifieds, etc and also to further integrete it with our other projects like Egreeting which should be resurfacing in June 2008 and I am sure you all will like it and we are also working on finding a right partner to guide us in making a useful portal on Indian Vedic Astrology and Numerology.

c) The whole team at Cyberax working on India Forums are excited on the developments and the features we are planning to integrete.

d) One of the member suggested a feature "Whisper" which I found really interesting where by instead of sending PM you can just send a short message to a member just like you get a chat popup while browsing your Gmail. Sounds like a simple thing but lets see how easy it is making it work on a high traffic site like ours.

e) We will now be able to check who else are surfing in that particular forum / post as we are redoing the entire session management.

Please note the layout that we have shown is not the final one and we are constantly taking your inputs and making necessary changes to give it the best possible revamp.

Cheers,
Vijay
- India Forums Development Team

nice design bhaiyaa...

but will it take so much time to load... because of the dial-up connections too... 😛 and how do we c the active users list or users who are online??? just a small silly doubt 😛

forgot to add... the logo is damn cool 👍🏼

Originally posted by: vijay

Hi Friends,

It was really nice going through all the suggestions and feedback. I do not know how many times I say, its really nice to see a "sense of belongingness" towards India-Forums and the way members come forward to help us with their ideas, suggestions and feedback. And probably that is what makes us different to other sites.

Coming back to a few more stuffs:

a) As mentioned earlier I understand that many might feel that this will make the site look more techno and less of a "welcoming","homely" but do not worry we are taking all possible user tests to make sure that India-Forums is always welcoming and a warm place and somewhere "homely" too.

b) The design update is essential as the current layout is somewhere limiting us in terms of things that we can really do at India Forums to make it even better and take it to the next level. Somewhere the idea is to give members a platform to discuss on issues apart from Television to even more broader areas like Bollywood, Indian Entertainment. Then evolving it into a unique Social Networking model, Video sharing, FREE Classifieds, etc and also to further integrete it with our other projects like Egreeting which should be resurfacing in June 2008 and I am sure you all will like it and we are also working on finding a right partner to guide us in making a useful portal on Indian Vedic Astrology and Numerology.

c) The whole team at Cyberax working on India Forums are excited on the developments and the features we are planning to integrete.

d) One of the member suggested a feature "Whisper" which I found really interesting where by instead of sending PM you can just send a short message to a member just like you get a chat popup while browsing your Gmail. Sounds like a simple thing but lets see how easy it is making it work on a high traffic site like ours.

e) We will now be able to check who else are surfing in that particular forum / post as we are redoing the entire session management.

Please note the layout that we have shown is not the final one and we are constantly taking your inputs and making necessary changes to give it the best possible revamp.

Cheers,
Vijay
- India Forums Development Team

if I may add my input...it seems like in the effort to make IF the biggest and the best around the team has blended IF into the gaint cluster of every other site. By reading what you have written, it seems that IF is now more focused on being the best in everything rather than holding on to the one thing that its members come here for. IF didn't get all these members because IF was going to expand. They members came because IF had something different to offer then all the other sites. And now, judging by your posts and the new layout, it seems just like any other site on the web. THere is nothing to set it apart. The fact that it was a forum is no longer apparent. It seems more like a website to hung up on getting everything they possibly can on their site. It's not good to have everything becuase than you lose what is really important to you. Right now it seems like creating an open honest communication is what IF is all about. But once you change things that will take the back seat. This in my opinion is losing quality for quantity...and getting people here who probably wont stick around as long as we have because sooner or later they will find another, more conviniant site that will offer everything IF does....

Like even now, there are members of the management team (mods, viewbies, etc) that are not doing their jobs at all. Or those who are promoted for certain reasons and then once promoted go power crazy. THere are those that do not make the effort to help the members (i know this from personal experience dealing with many different offical members). The admins themselves are so busy with other things that they cannot answer the very important,urgent pms sent to them by us or even the mods! Important posts get trashed without any notice to the creator and when mods are asked, they say that even they dont know what happened. In doing so you are trying to save space, which is just fine, but you dont realize that some of those posts have important information for us and our group of memebrs and that massive collection of information can never be brought back. I'm not saying this to offend anyone but this was the only way to help you understand what is really going on on IF.

In the end it's up to you to make the decision cuz it's ur site...but losing things like a focus, purpose, or quality isn't worth it...

anyway, have a great day.
IBserenity

Hey,

Thanks IBSerenity for the feedback and I really appreciate that you brought up those issues.

First thing the idea is not to lose the focus but to constantly evolve for better and somewhere it will be webbed around India Forums which has evolved as a community of people who are interested in Indian Entertainment.

And somewhere we love to try new things which we find challenging and something that we can do better.

Cheers,
Vijay

IBSerenity voiced the main concern I had when I read your reply Vijay. I also certainly hope all these new add-ons being proposed do not compromise on the current focus and main draw of india-forums.

The term "webbed around india-forums" is encouraging to this end, which I guess implies the current environment/content will be leveraged while the new is introduced around it.

However, one cannot deny that the admin group's attention on the current content will decrease, and for that reason maybe assigning dedicated resources to maintain quality would be appreciated.

At this time, the new add-ons being proposed seem to be more like static content than ones in which members can contribute interactively, which makes the current forum concept still the more attractive option for members.

Having said that, it would be interesting to know if the new content proposed to be introduced, like astrology, e-greetings etc., will also be on the lines of interactive communication instead, although I can't imagine how...

Hi

Well the focus will always be on providing a platform to our members to express themselves and have user generated content. We have been continously working on having mechanism to keep it clean and organised so that we do not get spammed like other forums.

If you notice all the various things we added to IF have been "webbed" around India Forums and what we felt will enhance our site and improve user experience.

Just like TellyBuzz which has established itself as #1 Television news site not just in terms of visitors but also on the speed the news are published. The idea was to strengthen our forte on Television and today we surely share a good rapport with all the TV actors, production house and channels. And interestingly the comments posted on our articles are not jut read by all the tv industry people but also taken as serious feedback.

Atleast today we can say that we are not just another forum.😊

I am happy that members are coming forward and raising their concerns on our new ideas which also shows that they do care about India-Forums. Its nice to recieve constructive criticism and that somewhere help us constantly re-evaluating where we can improve or where we have gone wrong.

Cheers,
Vijay

hey vijay bro

i personaly dont like the new layout
like many member sed it look too comom
i kno its not the final one

i loved the whisper idea..

i think we should be able to edit our hompages more as well.. a little like myspace or bebo or facebook is.

i think the layout will probaly grow on users.

Also i think all post reply boxes should be WYSIWYG Editor as it will make it easier for users

also what about if we could listen to podcast on the same page as we browse... for example like a lil media player on the side

thats all for now will get bak to you..